Alright here we go
So I mentioned before that I liked season 8, and I did, but here's the thing.
It should have been longer.
It felt to me, like they were trying to wrap up the series and wash their hands of all the discourse. And who could blame them?
But what struck me about season 8 in particular was the fast dealing of new things, and the lack of explanation of why those new things occurred.
Example: all the balmeras showing up out of nowhere.
They do the barest minimum of establishing that there are other balmerans, and no establishing that the balmeras can even travel across space at spaceship level speeds.
So when they show up, last minute, with no prior warning, it feels like a cheap opportunity for voltron to get a power boost.
Balmera ex machina.
Not only was the plot rushed and jammed into a short timeframe, but character development as well. We see like, no interaction between the characters that has any weight beyond the first episode. And even that doesn't feel fleshed out.
Allura and Lance's relationship could have benefitted way more from one or two more episodes of build up. We know Lance is in love with her, bit on Alluras part if feels like a pity date followed by a very short relationship, followed by her dying. Which cheapens her character and softens any emotional blow to Lance beyond them being the same level of friends as the rest of the paladins.
I'm all for using another's characters death for a characters arc to grow, but when it means maybe an ounce more than it did to the rest of the cast, it throws off the emotional focus.
Which makes Lance getting all that emotional focus seem forced. And a lot of you were upset about him not getting character development over the past few seasons, and I think they wanted to fix that, but they did so in a lazy way.
Other instances of characters that got no attention placed on their development include
Keith and Shiro getting little to no screen time together despite their well established connection. (I'm not a sheith shipperbut still they have history and there's a lot of good character moments in the season that could have drawn from that.)
Romelle being basically tossed into the category of background characterafter the first episode. "Oh yeah she works for Hunk now. Why? Who cares? Next!"
Pidgeand her family. They get a few moments but nothing that isn't played off as a joke. "Nevermind the fact that Colleen hasn't gotten to really interact with her family at all for several years, she's just a strict mom for shits and giggles. Next!"
Shiro marrying some rando that only shows up in the background. "Who is he? Where did he and Takeshi meet? What's their relationship like? What's he like? Who cares? Next!" Except it wasn't next. It was what they chose to leave on.
The season was hurt so badly by the fact that it was only 13 episodes. It they had done a longer season, it would have been fine. It would have been a bit more to produce and be an unprecedented length, but they would have had time to really finish the season right. And not piss off a massive chunk of their fanbase.
